VizieR is a joint effort of CDS (Centre de Données astronomiques de Strasbourg) and ESA-ESRIN (Information Systems Division). VizieR has been available since 1996, and was described in a paper published in A&AS 143, 23 (2000).

Note that VizieR does not contain all available online catalogues; some catalogues are not suitable and some less frequently used catalogues have not yet been incorporated into the VizieR database. These last ones can be accessed by FTP from the Astronomer's Bazaar.